Smith takes home Allan Border Medal

28 Jan 2015

Steven Smith became just the tenth player to receive Australian cricket's greatest individual honour when he was named the Allan Border Medallist for 2015 on Tuesday.

The 25 year-old from New South Wales secured a hat-trick of prizes by also collecting the Test and One-Day International (ODI) Player of the Year awards, becoming only the third man after Ricky Ponting in 2007 and Shane Watson four years later to achieve the feat.

Reflecting on his three awards Smith, who also captained Australia to a 2-0 Test series win over India in the absence of the injured Michael Clarke to regain the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, said: "I guess I am surprised to win the three awards," he said "I have had an amazing year and it is something to be really proud of. I am joining an illustrious group who have come before me this evening and to win these awards is a dream come true.

"It has been a focus of mine to convert starts into really big hundreds and I am proud to do that. I am really happy with where my game is at," he added

Smith was the top run-scorer for Australia across the three formats of Tests, ODIs and Twenty20 Internationals (T20Is) with 1756 runs at 67.54 during the voting period that started with the ODI against England at the WACA in Perth on 24 January 2014 and ran through to the fourth Test against India at the Sydney Cricket Ground that wrapped up on 10 January this year.

The right-hander polled a total of 243 votes in the Allan Border Medal count to finish well clear of his nearest challenger, fellow New South Welshman and opening batsman David Warner, who collected 175 votes during the same period. Last year's Allan Border Medal winner Mitchell Johnson (126) finished third in the count, a position he matched in the Test Player of the Year award.

Smith was Australia's top Test run-scorer during the period under consideration, totalling 1212 runs at a phenomenal average of 86.57, including five fifties and five hundreds and he was one of only two players - the other was Warner (1209), who finished second in the Test Player of the Year ballot too - to top 1000 Test runs in the nine matches Australia played.

In ODIs, no-one could better Smith's average of 49.18 with 541 runs from 12 matches and only Aaron Finch, the runner-up in the ODI ballot, was more prolific, although his 647 runs came from three more matches than Smith. James Faulkner finished in third place in the 50-overs category.